BBC stripped back to basics

Under scrutiny: Union bosses warned of industrial action

By Tom Leonard, Media Editor

12:10AM GMT 08 Dec 2004

The BBC director-general unveiled "painful" plans to axe up to 5,000 jobs and sell off commercial ventures yesterday in a radical blueprint to direct an extra £320 million a year into improving programmes.

Mark Thompson warned staff in an address broadcast into every office in the corporation that the BBC needed to offer licence fee payers better value.

Union leaders said the job losses were the biggest in the BBC's history and claimed they could destroy the heart of the corporation.

But Mr Thompson said they were the "right price to pay" for safeguarding the future of the "greatest force for cultural good on the face of the earth".

Most of the 2,900 job losses will go from administrative departments such as marketing, training and human resources but 400 posts will be cut from the BBC's factual and learning division.

A further 2,400 staff could be taken off the payroll after Mr Thompson said some BBC commercial ventures, including Broadcast, Resources and BBC Worldwide's books and learning tools department, would be put up for sale or joint venture.

Further redundancies are expected next March in other areas, including news.

Announcing the findings of four separate internal reviews, Mr Thompson promised the corporation would invest more in the sort of programmes in which viewers expected the BBC to excel: news, current affairs, comedy, drama and music.

He pledged extra money for "original entertainment and programmes that are part of the national conversation such as Jonathan Ross and Have I Got News For You". At the same time, he said, reality and "lifestyle" shows would be cut from the schedules and there would be fewer peak time repeats.

Audiences wanted the BBC to "raise its game" and produce programmes with "more quality, more ambition and more depth than they get from other broadcasters".

Mr Thompson told his 27,000 staff that the corporation needed to become a simpler, more creative organisation and that in the world of digital technology it had to adapt if it wanted to survive.

The Government is reviewing the BBC's royal charter and Mr Thompson admitted that he hoped that by laying out a clear vision of the future he would dampen opposition to the continuation of the licence fee.

The BBC was at a "critical" point in its 77-year history and needed to "save to spend" on preserving its status as a "world heritage site," he said.

"Media is being re-invented and audiences are racing ahead with it. If we don't keep up with those audiences, we're dead. Maybe not tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, but soon enough, there isn't going to be any room for old media or old organisations.

"I'm sorry for the sense of pain and uncertainty, but this process of very considerable change is the right price to pay to achieve the prize of a strong, independent and creative BBC."

The corporation will reduce what it sees as its over-concentration in London by moving 1,800 staff - including BBC Sport, most of Radio Five Live and all children's programming - to a new regional centre in Manchester over the next five years.

Match of the Day, Grandstand and Football Focus will all be broadcast from Manchester.

Mr Thompson said the BBC had neglected the north of England and the move was designed to "to win back trust in parts of the country which can currently feel quite alienated from the BBC".